A bowl of oatmeal for breakfast or a sandwich made with whole wheat bread can help boost your health many ways, including lowering cholesterol and maintaining a healthy gut. Now, according to new research, those foods and other whole grains may also help you live longer.

Published in the journal Circulation, the paper included 14 studies totaling over 786,000 participants, most from the US with a few from Scandinavia and the UK. All studies had gathered information on how many whole grain foods the participants ate – through questionnaires or food records.

The researchers first compared those who ate the most whole grains to the lowest whole grain eaters and found a 12 percent lower risk of dying from cancer among the highest whole grain eating group. For cardiovascular (CVD) death, risk reduced by 18 percent and for any cause of death, there was 16 percent lower risk. Read more… “Study: Whole Grains Link to Less Death From Cancer, Heart Disease”

A large study on coffee making news today is good news for coffee lovers savoring your morning cup. The study finds that drinking up to five cups of coffee a day links to living longer, and lower risk of dying from type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, when compared to non-coffee drinkers.

The benefit held true for drinking caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee.

Published in Cardiology, this latest analysis adds to the evidence in recent years suggesting that moderate amounts of coffee can bring health benefits. Coffee contains several phytochemicals and nutrients that lab studies have linked to lower risk of inflammation and keeping insulin at healthy levels, both of which play a role in type 2 diabetes, as well as cancer risk.

This study did not find a link between coffee consumption and cancer deaths. But AICR and World Cancer Research Fund’s analysis of the research finds there is strong evidence that coffee drinkers have lower risk of developing both endometrial and liver cancers. Having type 2 diabetes also increases the risk of many cancers.

If you’re a woman and getting at least 30 minutes a day of activity, that means a lower risk of colorectal cancer. Now a study published today suggests that women who exercised as teens for even an hour a week have a lower risk of dying from cancer in middle age and older compared to teens who weren’t active at all.

These women are also more likely to live longer overall, the study suggests, whether they exercised as adults or not.

The study included almost 75,000 Chinese women who were part of the Shanghai Women’s Health Study. The women were 40 to 70 years old and they had answered questions about their lifestyle habits currently and decades earlier.

After an average of 13 years, the researchers looked how many of the women had died overall, and whether the cause of death was from cancer or cardiovascular disease.